Condition of True
by Arkytal
Summary: A traumatized and ravaged soul enters the afterlife. Unbeknownst to them, a war is about to erupt. Former title: Loop
1. Wherever Here Is

Loop: Chapter 1  
Wherever Here Is

They told me I'd be fine. They told me I'd wake up from the surgery. They told me it wasn't my fault. They told me there was nothing I could have done. They told me they cared about me. But they were lying. I knew it, and their faces belied that.

It was my fault she died. It was my fault he became depressed. My fault he worked himself into a coma. My fault I worked in his stead. My fault I fell into the vat. My fault I burned my legs. My fault I was weak.

It all came back to one thing.

Her.

She didn't know I made the wrong choices, hung out with the wrong people. She offered them a warm meal, they offered her gunshot wounds. On her dying breath, I heard her say "I don't understand." She was only thinking of making me happy, and I repaid her by getting her killed.

Now I'm dead. And now I'm here. Wherever here is.

It's an enormous school, I can tell that much for sure. It makes the school back home look like a one-room schoolhouse in comparison. Of course, I'm attending classes here. Everyone seems to know who I am, even though I have absolutely no idea who they are. The people here are nice enough, but at the same time they feel just as fake as the doctors and nurses in the hospital. They were hiding something, even if they didn't mean to or even know they were.

stopped going to class 3 days ago. I expected members of the disciplinary commitee to drag me from my dorm and make me go to class, but no such thing happened. I was left alone to my own devices.

I stared in the mirror, straining to remember events in my life. I remember falling into the foundry pot, having my legs horribly burned and subsequently amputated, and being brought into the surguery for a lung transplant. Anything previous to that was a black void. Yet here I am, a full person, two working legs and arms. Same spiky blue hair I got from...where again? I don't even remember that.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I put on my jacket and left the dorm, heading for the vending machines. I got myself a Key coffee, and went to the roof of the Administration building. I wasn't sure why, but I felt like it would be nice up there.

The view offered on the roof depicted the whole of the gargantuan school in mid-summer, complete with club activities starting, as the walk from the dorms to the main building took the better part of 25 minutes.

To think that the people here didn't have to worry about where or even when their next meal happened. They just got to focus on being students, and enjoying life. I knew in my heart that this wasn't what I wanted. Even though I can't remember, I know that's not it. If I wished to simply be a student, I wouldn't have stopped being a student, even here.

I can feel something about this place. It's off. Somehow. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm dead. And if I'm dead then this is some form of afterlife, or underworld, or something. I'd believe it's of the former, due to myself not boiling in lava. Again. Heh, that's a painful joke to think about. I can still feel the searing pain of molten metal on my legs. THAT is an experience I won't soon forget. Hell, it seemed to even transcend death and follow me...here. I still don't know where "here" is. Other than the afterlife theory.

The door to the roof banged open, startling me, yet I was greeted by a small girl. She looked out-of-place at a high school. Her long white hair was tied in a ponytail, and her yellow eyes shone brightly. She walked up to me, and simply looked me in the eyes. She gazed up at me, and it felt as though her vision was piercing my very soul. I took a step back, which pushed me against the railing. She gazed at me for a while longer, before simply tilting her head to the right slightly, nodding, and walking away.

And by away I mean she hopped the side of the railing and plunged 4 floors to the ground. I looked over the edge, but she was nowhere to be found.

I'm taking it to be par for the course in crazy for now. I headed back to my room, pondering about who the little girl was, and whether I had really seen her or not. My sleep that night turned out to be short bouts of uneasy sleep combined with a disjointed stream of nightmares that had the same recurring theme.

That some unseen, unfathomably large menace was coming for me. However, I managed to sleep after the mysterious girl I met today invaded my dream and banished the unseen monster with a large aura of light emitting from her body.

I would have to thank her later for that, because I doubt that something immaterial would have an effect on me like that. Then again, I AM in the middle of the afterlife, trying to sleep despite having nightmares, and having encounters with a little girl who enjoy jumping off buildings.

The next day, I decided to attend class. There was a new student in class. He had auburn hair and wore bggy shorts coupled with a sweatshirt, instead of the standard school uniform. He was looking off into the distance, and was very peculiar when I attempted to start a conversation with me. He reacted as though I was some type of enemy, and pulled a small caliber hand-gun out of his pocket, leveling it with my forehead.

My subconscious shot forward the fact that it was a Beretta M92F, and had a 8 round magazine, along with being chambered in .45 ACP, but I was more focused on not getting shot. I asked if he was going to shoot, and he simply smiled and pulled the trigger.

**A/N: This is an idea I had, I'll be expanding on it in the next few days. A review would be wonderful! **


	2. Infirmation

Loop

Chapter 2: Infirmation (yes, that's a pun)

I woke up in sheer panic. The last thing I could remember was the gunshot, then everything went black. I looked around, realizing I was no longer in the classroom where I was shot. I was laying in a stark white bed, which was in a row of white beds, and I was the only occupant of the room. The faint pink light of afternoon shone through a window behind my head, indicating at least several hours had passed.

I performed a quick inspection of myself while still in the bed, and I did not appear to have a hole in my head. Which was odd, because on all accounts I should have died from that. There was no room for error with only a few inches between my skull and the handgun. This led me to conclude that since this IS the afterlife (I hope), I cannot die. But it still hurt like HELL to die.

I realized there was a curtain blocking my view to the right of myself, so I leaned over and pulled it back. I immediately wished I hadn't. There were two things that I did not wish to see sitting there. One of them was my school uniform, covered in blood. The other was the person who shot me. However, he was asleep, and did not pose an immediate threat.

I picked up my jacket, which was sopping wet and heavy with my blood, and threw it on him, jolting him awake. He looked around in a panic, and when he saw that I was awake, he chuckled, sighed, and put the jacket back on the chair next to him.

"So you're awake."

I rolled my eyes. He looked at his feet before continuing with a sigh.

"Sorry for shooting you, I didn't realize you weren't like the rest of them."

At this point I sat up in the bed, paying attention. This guy knew the people here weren't normal? And I thought I was crazy! I spoke up finally.

"The people around us aren't people...I think. They don't have the same...life to them that we do. They just repeat everything endlessly, without ever changing, evolving...living."

I'm not sure where that came from, but it felt right, and he nodded, seemingly agreeing with me. He looked up at my face, and his brown eyes sparkled in the afternoon sun.

"So do you have any idea where the hell we are? I think I'm dead. I remember getting stabbed by my stepmother, and now I'm here. Crazy shit, eh?"

He seemed to be warming up to myself, so I replied truthfully.

"I think we're in the afterlife. I remember dying very clearly; I had a complication during a surgery that would've prolonged my life, if only by a few months." As I said this I became crestfallen. Either way, I wouldn't have made it to my 18th birthday.

He seemed to be mulling it over in his head, as he turned to look out the window at the baseball field. He turned back to me suddenly and clicked his fingers.

"I just remembered something. My name. It's Yuri. Not sure what my last name is though."

I just stared. And after about 30 seconds, started smirking, before fully laughing out loud, at which point I fell off the bed and onto the floor. The floor was hard tile. It hurt. But not as much as my chest did while I was laughing.

"Yuri" was getting very flustered as well.

"Hey! What's so funny about my name?"

After a few minutes, I wiped the tears out of my eyes and lifted myself off the floor, noting I was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt.

"Nothing, just that Yuri is, you know...a girl's name, maybe?" I smirked after I said it, still chuckling. For some reason, I found it absolutely hilarious.

He sighed, before looking out the window again.

"Yeah, I know, but my dad was from Russia, and he was set on naming his son Yuri, you know?"

We began to collect our things to leave the room. He began to get up, but not before putting his leg out to trip me as I walked towards the other end of the room. I caught myself and grabbed his outstretched leg and gave it a quick clockwise rotation. The snap was clearly audible. He tumbled out of the chair, moaning in pain. I stood over him with a devilish grin.

"Now we're even."

If looks could kill, I'd be dead right now. Oh wait! I already am! Jokes aside, I helped him up, and surprisingly, his snapped ankle seemed to have repaired itself in the 5 minutes he was on the ground crying.

We began our walk back to our respective dorms when he spoke again.

"Hey, I never got your name. Lemme guess, it's just as out of place as mine?"

I looked at him, then shook my head sadly. As I shook my head, I thought I caught a glimpse of white by a fountain, but Yuri quickly diverted my attention back to him.

"I honestly don't remember. If I did, I'd tell you. All I know about myself is that I fell in a foundry carriage, and my life sucked."

He cringed at the thought of that, but gained a thoughtful look as we ascended the stairs in one of the main courtyards. After a while he clicked his tongue a few times.

"Well, I have to call you something. How about Aya? It would fit you; you're quite the colorful person, personality-wise anyways."

He cracked a smile at this, and earned an elbow to the ribs, but I aquiesced, thinking that any name is better than no name. We said our good-byes as we headed for our respective dorm buildings, wondering our purpose in the world here, and what would occur the next day. We had agreed to meet up on the roof of the Administration building early in the morning, simply to get to know each other better, and to avoid going to class.

I took a pad of paper on my desk and wrote a few things on it, just for future reference.

-Day 2?

Met this guy who shot me in the skull with Beretta M92FS .45ACP handgun (definitely fatal). Woke up in nurse's wing. Guy was sorry for shooting me. Made friends. Guy's name is Yuri. He's Russian. We're both cluess to where here is. We think it's the afterlife. We're probably dead. Yuri gave me the name of Aya, which means "colorful". We agreed that the name fits me rather well.

Going to investigate this world in depth tomorrow.

End-

And with that I fell asleep, realizing I had seen the small white-haired girl on the trip back to the dorms. Though at this point, I was simply too tired to make note of it, and fell asleep peacefully.

**A/N: Yup, Yuri can be a guy's name in Russian. Still can't decide on gender for the main character, so I'm leaving it/them with the unisex name of Aya for now.**

**Shit gets real next chapter, so review and let me know what you think!**


	3. Delegation

Loop

Chapter 3: Delegation

I was heading for the roof of the Administration building to meet up with Yuri. It was mid-morning, classes had already started, and it appeared I was the only one walking around. I had discovered a set of casual clothes in the closet in my dorm room, so I had donned them before I set out in the morning. They consisted of a simply green black shirt and khaki shorts, coupled with a sweatshirt that bore an odd symbol. It looked like SSS written in a fancy script, with a large blue cross splashed over it. I didn't ponder about it too much, as I was hurrying to meet Yuri on time, though we hadn't actually _set _a specific time.

The hallways of the Administration building were oddly empty, and it felt like I was being watched by someone just out of view as I wandered around finding each stairwell. They were placed haphazardly throughout the building, giving it a winding feeling. Several times I passed several rooms that looked similar to classrooms but had sandbags stacked up against the windows, and twice I saw rolls of razor wire strung across the windows, which unsettled me greatly. I wondered to myself 'What kind of people need razor wire and sandbags in classrooms?', but I was cut short by the entrance to the top floor. There was a girl with white hair standing at the end of the hallway away from the door, and it was no doubt the one I had seen the day before. My breath caught in my throat, and it was at that moment she turned around to face me. She slowly raised her hand and gestured for me to come forward.

I slowly eased the door open and walked ever so slowly down the hall to meet her in the middle. She started to look at me again, before starting to speak in a soft voice, almost to the point of being inaudible.

"If you choose to help them end the conflict in this world, know that there will be no lasting peace."

Her yellow eyes seemed to gaze into my very soul as she said this. We stood looking at each other for a moment, before she turned to walk into a room to the right. I stood in my place watching her. On the threshold of the room, she looked over her shoulder, and nodded. She closed the door silently, almost as if she had never been there at all. I shook my head, bot leeting myself get distracted. I head for the door to the roof, looking back only once I reached the door to the staircase leading to the roof. The air was thick with tension, but I shook away the notion of the girl as I headed up the stairs.

The door that led out onto the roof was solid, lacking a window. As I reached out to grab it, I felt ominous chills. I stopped, looking back down the staircase. I could have sworn I saw something move in the confined darkness, so I quickly opened the door to run into the blinding light of the mid-summer's day.

Yuri was leaning on the rail sunning himself...or appeared to be, but had a smirk on his face as he leaned into an upward position again and looked at me.

"Nice of you to join us, eh, Aya?"

I grimaced as I walked up to him, seeing his comical grin the whole way across the roof. I lput my weight on my back leg as I gave him a reproving look.

"You know, I didn't get any instructions, and this building is a mess. There was razor wire and sandbags in windows and doorways, and there was this little girl who—"

Watching his facial expression as I got to that part was enough for me to stop. He stared at me, and seemingly behind me, as he started to stutter.

"Th-th-th-th-the...girl? You mean, like about this tall and has white hair and yellow eyes?"

He indicated about how tall, and made gestures to mean big eyes, and I nodded, not really sure why this was such a big deal.

Yuri, however, looked past me and said "It's time to call back JJ's team to point Charlie."

I turned around to see what he was blabbering to, when I felt my jaw hit the floor.

In my haste to get to Yuri, I hadn't looked around or behind the stairwell. Which had six people about my own age in odd-looking school uniforms and holding an array of firearms. None of which were pointed at myself, thankfully.

A girl who appeared to be about my height with sandy brown hair sauntered over with the weight of a riot shield on her back and handed Yuri an earpiece, before winking at me and trudging back to where she was. Yuri listened to the earpiece for a minute or so, beforewalking briskly to the others and gesturing for me to follow. I did so, looking at the others leerily, but they gave me friendly smiles and encouraging looks, so I eased up a bit.

Yuri addressed everyone besides myslelf. "Alright team, we have to get down to the tunnels A.S.A.P. Binary, escort Aya to the Warehouse in Guild. The rest of you, form up behind me with your equipment."

Clapping his hands, he ended his short talk. They made their way towards the door, leaving me with an extremely tall guy who was leaning against the door with long brown hair covering his face, the frames of his square glasses jutting out, contrasting with his thin face.

He was the only one among those that left with Yuri who was not carrying a weapon, which did little to dissuade an easy feeling from my stomach as I looked at him, shifting uneasily.

He started to laugh, and heartily so.

"C'mon kid, I'm not gonna bite! We have to get going. Yuri's expecting us to take the fast way down to Guild, so we gotta move fast."

He started down the stairs, and I reluctantly followed. He walked into a classroom on the top floor and opened a closet, revealing a decent display of guns hidden behind a false back. He began assembling a set of pistols and nodded to the closet.

"Take whatever you like, hopefully you won't need it."

Taking a quick look over the guns, I reached out and pulled an M14 off its hook, looking for a magazine when it was passed into my hands by Yuri's guy, Binary or whatever it was. It was a large double drum magazine, and had to weigh a good 10 pounds. He also handed me a sling to carry the rifle with.

"An M14? Suits your figure I s'pose. Now lets get a move on."

He replaced the false back and we left the room. We were walking briskly in the main courtyard towards the south side of the campus, where the sports fields and halls were, when Binary began to speak.

"So, Yuri's got faith in you. Do you know why? He even brought the escort team up here to make sure you get down to Guild safely. That doesn't happen often."

I just shrugged and looked at the midday sun reflect off his glasses as we continued.

"I don't know, and I'm wondering, what exactly is this Guild you keep on talking about? It's something undergound, right?"

He led me into the gymnasium and over to the racks of fold-up chairs before he replied.

"Haven't been filled in huh? Well long story short, it's our base of operation, our largest and most well defended base, and where the majority of us stay."

He pulled a rack of chairs back, revealing a trap door underneath, and gestured for me to go first.

IT was almost pitch black going down the ladder, which continued seemingly forever before my shoes touched a puddle, indicating the bottom of the ladder. I stepped off it, Binary coming down a moment later.

Once he led me in one direction, lights began to turn on, dimly illuminating a long tunnel that was carrying a warm current down it. As we began to walk, I asked him why his name was Binary.

"Oh, that. Well, My real name is Jin, but when I first came to the Afterlife, everyone called me One Zero because I'm a really good hacker. One of the normal students actually suggested it, and the name Binary stuck. Kind of like Aya isn't your real name, but you're letting it stick."

I nodded, not trying to deny it. Nothing more was to be said, so we fell into a comfortable silence. We started taking turns in the tunnel, and the tunnel began to slope downwards at a slight angle, when I re-adjusted the rifle from m back to slung across my waist area, so the drum mag was not digging into my side.

Soon enough, the distant sounds of machinery could be heard, and the lights strung along the walls of the tunnel became more frequent, as the tunnel slowly grew wider, almost unnoticable at first. With one final turn, the tunnel emerged into the most absolutely massive cavern I had ever seen in my life. And we were standing at the bottom of it.

An absolutely gargantuan pig iron steel building sat in front of us across a courtyard large enough to fit a football field or five, complete with audiences, in. I was standing in absolute awe, but Binary just started towards the massive building and I ran after him to catch up. It was easily the largest building in the place, but the walls around us were all metal, indicating that the cavern was even larger than this portion.

After catching up to Binary, we about half-way towards the building, which was marked Warehouse, and asked him my qeustion.

"Binary, is this the only part of this cavern? Or ..."

He chuckled.

"Nope, this section is enclosed because of the volatile nature of what the rest of Guild is doing. We're gonna grab some munitions, test 'em to make sure they don't die on us, and meet up with Yuri; that M14 is not going to last you long, its falling apart at the seams 'Least you didn't need it on the way down here...!"

He was right; the rifle was in poor condition, and would most likely lock up if fired.

We went in the double doors to the Warehouse, which led to a single elevator, and rode it to the top. That's when my mind was reduced to ash.

There were rows and rows and rows upon countless rows of display cases filled with every type of firearm imaginable, and probably a few not imaginable. The ceiling was only about 2 stories high, and showed a great view of the ceiling of the cavern, which was still a ways away, belying the massive size of the cavern. The room was relatively empty, outside of a few people conversing next to a display case containing portable howitzers.

Binary turned to adress me. "Listen, you just wander around in here until you see something that REALLY catches your eye. Once you do, remember the ID number on it and take the elevator to floor 38, and take to the clerk there. Ask for the ID number, and she'll give you what you want. Then report to floor 36, I'll be doing paperwork."

With that, he left. Leaving me alone. In an enormous room of guns. I seem to remember liking guns a lot when I was alive.

I walked up and down the rows, looking at all of them, marveling as their details were recited back to me in my head, right down to production years and what type of ammo they used, and common flaws that occured when manufacturing them.

I soon came to the row of single-shot sniper rifles. I felt something warm in me after looking at them, and knew that in the crazy world I was in, I'd like to have a large-caliber rifle on me for whatever happens next. I stopped to look at an M82 .50 cal rifle, but soon shook my head and continued. I looked at all of them, but the one that seemed to "call" to me was an odd looking rifle that sat on a bipod. There was no informational tag next to it, and I couldn't recall what it was for the, pardon the pun, life of me. It in a bullpup configuration, closest in appearance to an M82A2, but was much smaller, probably less than 4 feet long. It appeared to also be of the same .50 caliber round.

I stood there for the better part of 10 minutes before one of the guys who had been conversing by the howitzers came over to me.

"So, you like that one, eh?" He waved his hand towards the rifle. I looked up from it to look at him, having not noticed he was there. He wore his black hair in a ponytail that was hung off to the side, with sharp eyes and his hands resting on revolvers in hip holsters.

.500 Super Magnums.

That's great to know, sub-conscious.

"Yeah. It's not marked or anything, is it for show only?"

He smirked. "Well, techincally, yes, seeing as the failure rate on them is pretty high, but if you want to take it down to the range to put some rounds through it, you're more than welcome to."

Fishing out a key from his jeans, he unlocked the display case, hoisting the rifle out with one hand and handing it to me. Making it look light, I attempted to grab it with one hand, and almost dropped it as a result. It was still close to 30 pounds. After he re-locked the case, he turned to me.

"The name's Kouta. I run the Warehouse with some of the less suicidal Guild workers. You?" Extending his hand to shake, I shrugged.

"I showed up in this world less than 48 hours ago, so hell if I know. I don't remember my name, but Yuri christened me Aya, so I guess you can call me that for now."

He nodded with a knowing look. "Yeah, Yuri nicknames everyone he meets if you let him. He's a good guy though, if a bit wacky. So where are you headed now?"

"Binary's office, floor 36 he said."

"Binary? Oh, floor 36 isn't his office, it's actually where reports get sent for confirmation. He lives in there due to the computers though, so it's all the same I guess."

I bid him goodbye as I walked into the elevator with my new rifle, noting how superbly it was balanced.

The door opened a second later to Binary sitting in a chair bent over a single sheet of paper, who looked up with the chime of the elevator. His eyes widened at the sight of the gun I was carrying. He stood up and walked over to me after I let the elevator close behind me. He looked at the rifle for close to a minute before getting a single word out.

"How...?"

Another minute later I got the rest of his question.

"...did you get Kouta to let that out of the case..."

I set the rifle down on Jin's desk (Binary sounds cheesy to me anyways), and performed a generic 'I don't know' expression.

"He just asked if I wanted it, since I stood there staring at it for like 10 minutes, and he let me take it. Why, is there something special about it?"

He shook his head. "Nothing simple. It's one of the only example of being able to create something from dirt without first knowing EXACTLY how it works. That rifle uses a special method to reduce recoil that no one except for our leader knew even in the slightest how to make it work, but here it is. The pinnacle of nSSS technology, eXperimental Marksman rifle # 500, or XM500 for short. It's the mechanical equivalent to proving that 5 times 3 equals 15...with only 5 atoms to work with." His hand movements accompanying this were quite humorous.

Jin walked over to a box on the other side of his desk, pulling out large bullets, .50 caliber in fact, and handed one to me. He headed for the elevator, looking back at me with a crazy grin.

"C'mon, everyone's been chicken-shit to fire that thing. Let's go down to the range."

Sighing, I gathered the rifle in my arms and made my way towards the elevator, wondering what exactly I was getting myself into.

**A/N: If only they knew...  
So yeah, isn't that a mouthful of a chapter? It's longer than the whole rest of the fic, A/N's and all! I was originally going to have this include a fight as well, but I dislike super long chapters, so I'll write that part tomorrow. This SSS is called the Nu SSS, or nSSS, and their leader hasn't been named yet either. So yeah, thanks for reading and it would be awesome to leave a review!  
**


	4. Salutation

Loop

Chapter 4: Salutiation

The firing range was nothing special. And by that I mean it was goddamn enormous, with well over one hundred stations to set up any manner of weaponry to fire. The range was longer than a football field, and at the opposite end, I could make out people setting up targets and hauling debris out of the way. It almost appeared that the curvature of the earth was affecting my vision. But we're dead, so wherever we are is still meant to be on Earth...or something.

Jin led me down a long row of stations, and all of the nSSS members that weren't focused on firing were looking right at me. Or rather, the rifle I was carrying. Whispers between each other, pointing, hand gestures, it was like I was the new kid in school. Though I was, in a sense. The big gun probably didn't help either.

Jin pointed to a station that was wider than the others around it, and had a thicked surface to set things on. He came up to me and set down a large green box on the station.

"Here's the ammo. I'm going to go talk to some friends, they're putting a bookie up that the first shot from that thing will knock you out cold. I'm betting against 'em. Don't let me down!" He flashed a grin before rushing off to a cluster of guys that looked slightly older than me. I turned back to the station, where the box of ammo and the rifle sat, resting on its bipod like a predator on its haunches.

I unfastened the cannister's lid, before pulling out individual rounds. I replaced them inside the box, before lifting up the rifle and removing the magazine. I set the rifle down, before leaning over and pushing the .50 caliber rounds into the magazine. It was a 5 round magazine, so it did not take me long to load it, at which point I closed the ammo box and set it down at my feet. Slotting the magazine into the rifle, I pulled the bolt back, though with great difficulty, chambering the first round. I could not decide which way to hold the rifle, as left-handed was more comfortable, but right-handed left me more room to position my feet in the booth. In the end I chose left-handed. I looked around for a stool or anything that would let me leverage myself against the weight of the rifle, however I simply saw a crowd gathered around me. Several dozen people, watching in absolute silence. I sweatdropped before giving them a little wave, which some responded to, and some did not. Turning back around, I could feel their gazes on my back.

It was a tad unnerving.

I shouldered the rifle, leaning in a bit to compensate for the weight of the rifle, looking for a target down range which would be suitable. After a few seconds of my arms crying out under the excessive weight, I saw it.

A target that was no larger than a human head, peeking out from among a stimulated bush near the back of the range. I angled the rifle up slightly to compensate for distance, steeled myself, then pulled the trigger.

The recoil was immense, causing me to step back several times, straight into the crowd, which had erupted into cheers and laughter. I felt more than a few pats on the back as I set the rifle down and looking around, wondering what the hell just happened.

A short girl who was wearing a green and yellow camo outfit with a sawed-off shotgun hanging from her belt loop and a submachine gun strapped across her chest got up from her position on the floor at the front of the crowd and walked up to me.

"Nice job with that rifle. No one else is able to shoot straight and/or not die while using that thing."

I laughed awkwardly, not sure if she was joking or not. She rolled her eyes.

"You think I'm joking? The last time Tsuruya tried to fire that monster the recoil sent the buttstock straight through her skull. She didn't revive for a week." She gestured to the amassed crowd, who, upon closer inspection, was all wearing the same camo outfit, in varying shades of green and blue.

"This is the Experimental Weaponry division of the Nu SSS. We make the crazy stuff that goes boom in ways it shouldn't. Our callsign from on high is Mad Hatters, though it suits us nicely." Some of said Mad Hatters grinned madly with her introduction, waving hello to me or at least nodding at me. Turning back to this girl, I let her finish her explanation.

"Anyways, we built that XM500 with a lot of help from the Boss. You're the first one to actually take a shot with murdering youreslf, so we're going to let you keep it. Right boys?" The last sentence was directed to the crowd, which hollered their approval in response.

"We'll deal with Kouta about this. I only let him have this in a display case up top just to make its existence known. If we left it in our workshops, it wouldn't be seen for years on end."

The crowd began to disperse once we stopped talking about this magic rifle that's now mine...or something...and Jin ran up to us shortly thereafter.

"Oh! Lt. Miki! My apologies! Aya, that was amazing! I made mad bank off of that be-OI!" His gleeful shouts were cut off when the girl, Miki, apparently, jumped up and headbutted him in the face. A sickening crunch was heard, and he dropped like a rock. She stared at him for a minute, before glancing over to me with a sweet little grin on her face.

"That reminds me, we haven't been introduced. I'm Lieutenant Miki Wakasi. And you're the mysterious Aya that Yuri was all up in arms about yesterday evening, of course." She winked, before nodding at the rifle.

"Grab your gun and ammo, I do recall you having to check in with Yuri once you were situated." She pointed at Jin. "He'll be fine, I'll leave the lump a note that we left without him." Pulling out a pad of paper and a note, wrote a note on it, before attaching it to his forehead with super-glue she had pulled out of a side pocket. "There. Now, shall we?"

We left the firing range and stepped into the elevator, on which we were not the only occupants. A large howitzer was being transported to the ground floor, where the guy who was moving it said it was to be moved into position to protect Guild.

We left howitzer guy at floor 29, where Yuri was to be located, according to Miki. This floor was more sane than the others I had seen so far, with a 2 floor tall ceiling and a cubicle layout. Miki led me to a cubicle which was overflowing with ammo and ramen noodles. In that order.

There were several different sizes of loose ammunition rolling around on the floor, and more unfinished ramen containers than I could amass in 10 years. Yuri was typing furiously into a computer in the corner, with big, goofy headphones on his head and really loud techno blasting through them. He glanced back and forth from the screen to a paper on his desk. Miki slowly took her shotgun off of her belt loop, and turned it around , holding the barrels with her hand...and whacked him over the head with it.

Which did nothing, scarily enough. He turned around slowly, and grinned a grin that put the Cheshire Cat to shame. Not bothering to get out of his chair, he threw an unfinished bowl of ramen at Miki's face, which was apparently still hot, as she screamed and fell to the floor, holding her face.

I looked out into the hallway, but not a single person had stopped to see what the ruckus was about. A passing soldier simply grimaced and gave me an encouraging smile, before saluting and walking off. Looking back in, I saw, and heard, Miki screaming at Yuri for something, and it was such a terrible sound I felt my ears pop, and a liquid began to drip out of them. I felt rather woozy, so I decided to lie down. I still had my rifle in my hands, so I used it as a pillow. It was a hard pillow.

I woke up on the floor of that cubicle, unaware of what was going on, besides a pool of blood on the floor that had now soaked my hair, and that a klaxxon was roaring, either in my head, or overhead. Neither of which boded well for me. I was pulled up roughly by a large guy in jet black armor, who was standing in front of Yuri, who was wearing a helmet with a blacked out visor. The sound of the klaxxon was all I heard, so I followed them out into the hallway, which was total chaos, with large masses of people heading in all directions, all of them carrying a multitude of firearms.

We were given a wide berth with Yuri leading the way, and the large man with machine guns slung under his arms. We filed into the elevator, where we went down to floor 9, which was odd, as I thought we were attempting to leave the building.

We stepped out into a hallway that was right against the walls, which were large unending panes of glass. Looking outside them, flashing lights were everywhere and heavy machinery could be heard grinding on itself. The man in black armor pulled me along while Yuri waved us off before getting back in the elevator. He led me to a bank of windows that were heavily fortified, and each window was backed by no less than 6 men and woman on each side, all armed with sniper rifles. I was directed to a window in the middle of this bank, which was entirely empty. The armored man gave me a helmet similar to Yuri's, and upon putting it on, heard a constant stream of radio chatter from the people around us.

"Coming in at a constant 6 kilometers per hour"

"The precautions have been set, it'll buy us some"

"The prototype is being fielded with the"

"At least forty individual targets"

"All of the manned armored"

It was a cacophony of information at first, but it soon thinned out into a sole constant radio chatter.

"Alright newbie, we're going to be providing sniper cover for gorund units in the courtyard. While you were unconscious, I took the liberty of loading that monstrous rifle of yours with incendiary rounds, so they'll tear right through 'em with ease."

It was Binary's voice, oddly enough, but I found it strangely comforting. I looked around the hallway, over to others setting up a position to fire down into the street. I couldn't find Binary, which was disappointing. I looked back to my own place, where some people had showed up with a cart containing sandbags, offloading them in front of my window to create a temporary barricade, and I assisted them in moving them into a proper position. A person wearing a black cloak next to me helped out as well, and nodded the others off, before beckoning to me, at which point they flipped a switch on my helmet.

"Alright, we're on a private channel right now. Yuri has placed you in our care for this mission. I'm Momo, the leader of the warehouse sniper squad. Reports say there's a massive enemy force in the tunnels, they've already set off some traps, were routing them into the courtyard down there." The cloaked figure pointed out of the window to the dilapidated courtyard that was full of junk and broken machinery.

"There's more than a few mines set up down there, to make our job easier-"

Before she finished her sentence, a massive concussive force blew us off our feet. I scrambled to my feet, looking for the source of the sound. The wall behind the courtyard had been smashed apart, and copius amounts of thick black smoke was pouring out of it. After a few seconds, it appeared to be that the smoke was taking shape and moving towards us, before a single shout was heard and a large whole ripped through the smoke. Or rather, shadowy beings that had clean white holes for eyes and stood taller than a human ever would. Everyone scrambled to their positions, taking aim and firing into the massive crowd, when a massive explosion occured, obscuring our vision again. I had yet to set up my rifle, which I did so in a hurry.

With little hesitation, I fired into the smoke, marveling at the bright red tracer my rounds made. With the proper stance adopted, that being prone on the floor, the rifle produced little recoil on my shoulder, allowing for rapid fire. The orchestra of rifles, rockets, and explosions settled into a steady rythm for several minutes. A few screams were heard here and there, but nothing to cause the gunfire to cease. Closer to the building, there were barricades set up and heavy machine guns firing into the constant onslaught of these shadow beasts. Without warning, something made me stop.

Among the shadows, in the middle of the deadzone, was that girl. The one with the white hair and yellow eyes.

She was being shot at, but the rounds seemed to simply bounce off of her, without leaving a single scratch. She had some blades in her hands, though it was hard to discern at such a distance. She walked calmly forward, murdering everyone who tried to stop her. A girl with long green hair held her off for a few minutes with an exaggeratedly intense knife fight, but she too soon succumbed. The shadows were beginning to group up behind the girl, unable to be hit from behind her, on ground level anyways. The snipers around stopped firing for a split second, before resuming, with much more explosions ricocheting across the area. I looked around, surprised to see them using the same, short-barreled rifle which was making the same THUMP sound when fired. They were loading grenades into them.

Momo's voice echoed through my helmet, over all the noise.

"We need these things to hit behind the Angel. Those Shadows get decimated by the shrapnel these 40mm grenades make; your rifle is such a monster you don't need these."

I resumed my steady pace of fire five rounds of firey death, reload, and fire some more. The Angel, as she called it, steadily advanced into our blindspot, but we kept the single file Shadows from reaching the building. The gunfire had begun to die down when a piercing scream was heard permeating out of the elevator shaft. A grating sound of shearing metal was then heard.

The elevator door rocketed forward, shattered the window in fron of it, and fell to the courtyard below. Not ten feet to my left, coincedentally. It almost took out Momo, who had rolled out of the way and drawn a German submachine gun. All eyes and guns were instantly trained on the elevator, thanks to the layout of the floor. I glanced around, seeing all of the rifles still on the floor, but more than a dozen different small machine guns and pistols aimed at the door. Not to mention some swords and other blades.

Out of the fire in the elevator stepped the Angel, who looked around, absorbing the enormous amounts of gunfire, before charging at a guy with a large axe in his hands. He swung wildy, but she sidestepped the slow swing and stabbed him right in the face. He fell backwards slowly, coating the wall behind him with a thick smear of blood. She moved on to another person, slashing a girl with dual pistols in the stomach, before kicking her out of the window. The Angel grabbed her pistols, when I saw her weapons. The blades were coming out of her sleeves, somehow attached.

She fired wildly into the crowd firing back at her, doing much more damage then they. Walking forward, she began to tear her way through the crowd of soldiers trying to stop her. I was at the back of this, sweating bullets. Hah. Bullets. I tried to come up with a solution for my dire situation, but, finding none, I grabbed my rifle, loaded a new magazine into it, and climbed up onto the sandbags stacked against the windows. I was above everyone else now, and began to see the destruction wrought by the Angel.

Over 70 people lay dead, with several severed limbs flung around the room, covering almost every surface with bodily fluids. The crowd had thinned enough to break into groups, so she could not attack everyone at once. I spotted Momo on the other side of the room, carrying a short-barreled assault rifle, taking potshots at the Angel, who was currently locked in combat with a shirtless guy wielding a naginata and wearing a skull helmet. Angel had emptied her pistols long before, left with her blades, and as I watched through the scope of my rifle, he landed a glancing blow on her, eleiciting a cry of pain and a trickle of blood from her face. The began to inch towards a window, and seeing my chance, I laid down on the bags.

There was a window that the Angel was forcing her foe towards, but with a flourish of his naginata he turned her around and pinned her against the window, and I screamed into my helmet.

"MOVE!"

As though he heard me, he jumped to the side, and I fired. The shockwave ripped open the sandbags I was atop, as well as the panes of glass hit by the shockwave, and the large, incindiary round made a neat skull tunnel through her head, shattering the glass behind her as well. Time seemed to slow, and I could see her hair billowing slowly as she began to fall, the blood staining her ebony hair.

I fired again, watching the bullet intersect with her path, catching her chest and ripping a lung out as it passed by. I fired again, catching her knee, watching the bone explode into fragments. She began to fall, and time sped up, back to how it normally was.

The sandbags gave way below me, so I tumbled to the ground, landing on one knee. My helmet fell off from the impact, but the floor, being slick with blood, caused me to fall.

Laying in the blood of these brave people, I knew what they were doing was right. To simply defend themselves, only to be attacked by a monster such as that, was truly despicable. This fight is the good fight, and these monsters can be defeated. This was proof of that.

I got up from where I had fallen, only to hear nothing. All eyes which could still function were on me.

A single clap was heard. Then another. Then another. Soon, the whole room was applauding and laughing and crying and celebrating. I was dumbfounded, but soon enough was taken into an enormous group hug from most of the rooms participants. My rifle was taken from me and set upon a barricade in the center of the room, and I was hoisted above the crowd, where I could hear bits and pieces of what they were saying.

"Right in the face! It practically exploded"

"the Boss is gonna be glad to hear this"

"killed the Angel! And isn't even a full"

I was put down after a couple of minutes, and people began to offer handshakes and highfives. The man with the naginata gave me a mock rifle salute, before hugging me so tightly I could have sworn I felt multiple ribs crack. He set me down gently and took of his helmet, cradling it under his arm.

He had deep brown eyes and a wide nose that was missing a chunk. Multiple scars crisscrossed his face, and his black hair was tied in a top-knot. He held his hand out for me to shake.

"Good job newbie! I heard you on the mic, and something just told me to get the hell out of her face. Good thing huh? I'm the leader of the Typhoon division, specializing in close-quarters combat. I haven't got a name, so just call me Jiiraiya." I took his hand and shook it, looking him in the eyes and smiling.

I looked over to the ruined elevator with a questioning look, because I had not seen any stairwells around, which was a massive oversight on someone's part.

Jiiraiya laughed when he saw me do so. He grabbed a microphone from his helmet and put it over his ear, nodding at me.

"We're trapped up here until the Drillers get through the rubble. That Angel did a real number on the lower levels. The radio chatter is saying that the Warehouse is the only building attacked by an Angel, so it was pretty lucky that we had someone as skilled as yourself up here."

I spluttered, attempting to dissuade that notion, but he simply laughed again.

"I know you're not a real member of the family just yet, but anyone who can hit a midair object 3 times with a sniper rifle while its falling is either lucky as hell or has the eyes of a demon. Either way, they're valuable skills for anyone in the nSSS."

We began to walk down the hallways, checking on the condition of all the emplacements along the outer walls. Surprisingly, there were claw and bite marks on a fair few of them, and signs of a struggle on many more. Jiiraiya hit several of them with his naginata to ensure they were still secure, and a few simply broke free and fell over, either into the building, in which case we righted them and secured them, or out of the building, where we justl ooked over and hoped it didn't hit a survivor. After our rounds were complete, we made it back to the main foyer surrounding the elevator, where most of the bodies had been put on tables, and those lucky survivors were sitting around in a circle talking. Upon our re-entry into the room, several people made a berth for us to sit down.

Momo called to me from the other side of the circle, surrounded by the other snipers, cleaning the barrels of their rifles.

"Hey, you done playing catch-up with ninja boy? Get over here and clean your gun." She pointed to my rifle, which had been moved to a table near the elevator, sitting beside the ammo tin I had been taking rounds from.

I obeyed her, grabbing the gun and walking over to sit behind her, gathering several stares as I removed the magazine and set it aside. I took apart each component individually, sliding into a trance-like state. Sounds around me were muffled, and I began to think. How did I end up here, right now? That was not an easy question to answer. I woke up in this world, made a friend who turns out to be part of this huge resistance force, and was kind of, but not really, enlisted into fighting supernatural monsters.

Which brought me to my 2nd point of wonder. How was I cleaning this heavy sniper rifle with no previous recollection of anything, never mind cleaning weapons. I could just look at any gun anyone had, and my mind supplied me with a figurative boatload of information. This would give credence to the theory that I quite enjoyed guns while I was alive. But being able to field-strip and clean a rifle that was obviously never intended for civilian use? That's a bit far, especially considering that the gun laws in Japan are quite strict.

Like that! How do I know that? Oh well, I'm almost done putting the rifle back together. I do quite like this bullpup design...

"Huh?"

I looked around, having noticed all eye on me again. Someone wolf whistled in the back of the room.

"Damn, someone's gotta teach me how to do that."

I looked towards the source of the voice, only to see Momo shooshing someone in the crowd. She turned back to me with a smirk.

"Apparently tapping out Hot Cross Buns with your feet is a talent."

I blushed, since I realized, if only vaguely, that I had done that while cleaning the laughed.

"Don't worry about it...anyways, so what did you think of your first day in the nSSS?" Her deep blue eyes felt like they were drilling straight into the core of my being, so I responded as honestly as possible, not caring who heard it.

"It was absolutely insane. I've seen asylum drawings that made more sense than this. We fought shadow monsters and that little girl from Hell, and we survived. The cost was astronomical, but this is most definitely the good fight in this world. I'm stucking with you guys until the very end, and possibly beyond. After all, we're already dead, so it can't get much worse, right?" My voice had started to rise throughout my little speech, and by the end of it, I got a few claps and cheers.

Momo simply chuckled.

"I wish it death was the worst thing in the Shadows' arsenals...anyways, come help us clean up some more while they clear out the elevator shaft."

Rising to her feet, her cloak draping around her, she led myself and one other person to where out stations were. I set my rifle down on mine, and we set off to restore a semblance of the old look to the trashed hallway.

**A/N: The first fight with the Angel(s)! And of course, copius amounts of firepower needed to take out a single Angel! ****Bad news for the nSSS...erm, anyways, thanks for reading, a review would make me all warm and fuzzy inside! :D **

The structure of the nSSS is as follows:

Leader(the Boss): Unknown  
Commanders: Unkown  
Sub-Commanders:Unknown  
Division heads:  
Communications: Yuri  
All others: Unkown

And each individual division has its own unique structure for ranking and naming, but in practice are all roughly equal in rank.  
The Experimental Weapons division are like the guys who build the cannon in Guild, but they operate independently from Guild due to the batshit insane nature of their work.


	5. The voices in my head

Loop

Chapter 5: The voices in my head

**A/N: Yeah, I seem to be updating all of my fics. Enjoy the chapter, in any case! I don't know if it will stack up against that honestly mind-blowing chapter 4, but I can try. (Seriously, I went back and read it, and was like O.O)  
**

* * *

The smells wafting throughout the Experimental Heavy Weapons division were interesting, so say the least. The unique combination of burnt flesh and ozone wasn't going to leave my nostrils for a while. The entire structure was built into the rock wall on the edge of Guild, and was basically several floors of wide open space. We were heading for Miki's office, as Yuri was too busy for me to contact him for further instructions. He's the second in command for the Communications division of the nSSS, so he was in the middle of coordinating the entire cleanup effort after the Angel did quite a number on the Warehouse district.

My performance during the battle earlier today had caught their attention even more than I did at the shooting range, and Miki had pulled some strings to get me into their division, which, while technically part of Guild, was doubly classified as being part of the Boomers, the Heavy Weapons Division of the nSSS's armed forces. They were the guys who actually USED the big stuff in battles. Silly me, thinking that 40mm grenade launchers and heavy machine guns were the extent of heavy weapons! I heard the tail end of the conversation on the radio, and Miki choked up for some reason when "Division Kappa" was mentioned, but I didn't think too hard on it.

I expected the division building to be full of weird and downright crazy stuff, and I was not disappointed. I had actually underestimated some of the things on the first floor. We still had 2 more to go.

The first thing that I was led by was a cannon with 8 barrels that was on a horse-drawn carriage type of thing, and looked to be operated via crank. Sticking out of one of the barrels was a grenade. That's actually pretty awesome, all things considered. It must be a pain to reload though.

The next thing that Miki pulled me by was an enormous cannon being held aloft by chains hanging from the ceiling. When I say enormous, I mean enormous. It had to be at least 20 meters long, maybe more. A dozen workers were scurrying around the underside of it, putting all different types of components into it. Miki gave an explanation for this one, at least.

"That cannon the boys are working on is a 46cm type 94 battleship cannon. These things were the largest bore cannons ever put on a battleship; the Yamato-class battleship had NINE of these monsters. We're building 4 of them to defend Guild, with two of them at each of the main entrances. This is the second one; the first one is already installed. The explosive shells that we fire out of these, in tests, are good for about 40 kilometers at 45 degrees of elevation. The rounds themselves can rip through an entire legion of Shadows. Of course, we modified the design so we can fire faster. That cannon is now capable of firing one round every 5 seconds! That should be able to repel anything the Shadows throw at us!"

It took the better part of a minute to get out from underneath the shadow of the colossus, so to speak. Overhead lighting only does so much when the floor is blocked by a naval cannon. We passed a shelf that was holding the rounds to be fired by that cannon; each one was wider than your average door, and significantly more explosive. Imagine that massive thing flying towards a shadow at 900 meters per second. Not pretty, to say the least.

Climbing a scaffolding-like staircase to the second floor, which Miki described as "where we work on the smaller stuff". Smaller, sure, but still big and crazy.

Whoever built this place put the staircases on opposite ends of the building, and trying to call down the massive cargo lift that was used to transport the bigger pieces would actually be slower than just walking back and forth.

Miki seemed to notice my inquisitive eye towards just about everything in the place, so she led me to the side and actually talked about each….uh….device, as we walked by it.

She first led me down the long line of large rifles, with the rounds they fired next to them. Looking down at the rifle I was holding, it looked pretty small compared to some of these monstrous things.

"This is the IWS 200, reserved for big Shadows; it can take down a tank in one shot and an overlord in 65 or so. It weighs a good 18 kilos empty, and uses a round that is 20 cm in length. It's not actually a rifle, it's a smoothbore weapon, but we keep it in this lineup because we're not going to make a whole new category for one gun."

The IWS was massive, dwarfing my XM500 by a long shot. It was almost 2 meters long, and the bipod looked like it was made for a small artillery cannon, not a rifle or anything that looks remotely like a rifle.

The next gun was much tamer, looking like a heavy machine gun on a tripod with an airplane style trigger at the rear and a box magazine that appeared to have been lifted from a light machine gun or something.

"Now this beaut was favored enough by some of the real crazies over in Assault that the Boomers use this one routinely whenever they don't have to worry about collateral damage. It's a fully automatic 40mm grenade launcher, and we had to custom make a few of them in the form of a rifle for some lunatic in Coffin. I don't know if you know this, but Coffin is this squad in Assault that is where all the crazies are sent. They give em the most ridiculous, explodey stuff and let them loose on the enemy. We mean, like REALLY explosive stuff; the Boomers don't touch most of their armament for fear of backfire and subsequent death. The death toll in that one squad is probably more than the rest of Assault combined. They do make a good living, explosive fist though.

Anyways, the rest of these are either grenade launchers or other big rifles. Let's get upstairs so we can get you familiarized with the way things work around here, and explain the whole situation to you."

So we passed by the rest of the bigger stuff with little to no explanation. I knew well enough what they were; howitzers, mortars, stuff like that. The staircase to the top floor was significantly better made, being a concrete staircase instead of horrendously wobbly pipes with plywood laid across them.

The top floor was by far the tamest, and had the lowest ceiling, at only about 5 meters. It was a mess of offices, and as the stairs were elevated, we could see across into each of the topless cubicles. I blanched at having to find my way through that mess, but Miki pulled me to the side, where I realized there was a row of larger offices set above the rest of them. In the back, beyond the mess of offices, was the cargo lift, which was being loaded with ammunition, which was stockpiled in the back. It was stacked from floor to ceiling, and again, scaffolding was laid out like a spider web across its entirety, a few members of the group going back and forth across it, picking up and dropping off green boxes of various sizes.

I looked back to the office, stepping inside, turning my rifle sideways and walking at an angle to fit in without hitting anything.

It was cluttered like any good office should be, with various gun components scattered across a multitude of tables, on the ground, and hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling fan was held together by duct tape, and looked like every rotation would bring it down on our heads. Good thing it was off.

Miki walked around a wooden desk and sat down in the only chair in the room, so I set my rifle on an empty table and sat on the table, my legs dangling over the side.

"Alright Aya, I'm supposed to have you sign a bunch of consent forms and various bullshit, but since you've already seen active combat, we can skip that and just enter you as enrolled in the nSSS Experimental Heavy Weapons Division, despite your physical combat record."

I got a little tripped up by this.

"Physical….combat record? Can you clarify that please?"

Miki just nodded, before picking up a pen and twirling it through her fingers as she talked. It was really distracting. Round and round it goes.

"Well, I have to explain the whole situation around what we're fighting before I can clarify the physical combat record.

Those black masses of shadow with the white eyes, we just call them Shadows. They've been around since the very beginning of the nSSS, and even before that. They are formed out of the NPC's, which are the normal school students that you've seen. At random times, they just change into Shadows, and attempt to consume us that have arrived in the afterlife. If they managed to beat us, they will consume you, and at that point you have three outcomes. The first outcome it putting a bullet in your head, as they need you alive to be able to consume you; this ensures your continued survival, and most nSSS members keep a single bullet for their gun on hand for easy and immediate access. The second outcome is they consume you and you become an NPC, doomed to live an empty "life" of attending classes for the rest of eternity here. The third outcome, and by far the worst, is you simply disappear. Wiped from existence. No one knows what happens after that, but you probably are just erased from existence, or are sent to a theoretical Hell and writhe in pain for the rest of forever.

They're terrible things, Shadows, and they come in several different varieties. The majority of them are slow moving foot soldiers that have a long range, and take about 12 pistol rounds or 5 assault rifle rounds to take down.

Other varieties include tanks, which are massive and take a lot of firepower to take down, creepers, which are tiny shadows that can worm their way through just about any defense, but go down in one shot, and overlords, massive armored things three stories tall that can consume everything in their path, and take some serious firepower to kill. There are some others too, but these are the most common.

The Angels, on the other hand, are much more intelligent than Shadows, which are borderline mindless. The original Angel is the little girl with white hair and yellow eyes, but she can create clones of herself, and sends these clones to fight us. They are just as powerful as she is, and routinely rip our forces to pieces. They have numerous abilities, including one that deflects small arms fire. They use close quarters combat, but can be harmed by blades as well, so the nSSS has a full CQC division that are referred to as Archangels, for their aptitude in taking down Angels. Thankfully they don't travel in packs, usually leading an attack of Shadows, and usually focus on one target.

The simple fact that you arrived in the afterlife less than a week ago, managed to let Kouta give you one of our rifles, then managed to control that monster, and killed a freaking Angel with it less than an hour later, means that you are either going to get transferred into the big leagues, or are going to be an exceptionally valuable asset for our operations here in the Experimental Heavy Weapons Division, which is commonly referred to as Santa's Workshop, for obvious reasons.

What I meant by the "big leagues" is the divisions and groups of the nSSS that operate almost exclusively topside. Our actual HQ is hidden away deep within the administrative building, but we keep it heavily defended at all times. The snipers topside use more traditional weapons than Momo and her lunatics, which defend the Warehouse district of Guild. They need less collateral damage, as they routinely take out Shadows and Angels while they are unaware of enemy presence, and therefore defenseless.

As soon as word makes it topside that a newbie killed an Angel with a rifle EHWD designed, there's going to be demand for you elsewhere. The EHWD isn't utilized often in combat; only the most massive groups of Shadows cause us to be called in. So I'm going to mark down in the system that you're on loan for other groups to utilize.

Don't worry about it, you'll still be kicking ass and taking names, just probably topside. You get me?"

I think she said all of that in one breath. She could be quite the motivational speaker if she wanted to.

"Eh….yeah, so what do I do for now?"

Always living in the moment! Stupid me. Wait, what?

Miki had stopped spinning her pen at some point, but she just started again, one in each hand. SO. DISTRACTING.

"Hmmmm, actually, since you skipped the whole training process the nSSS normally gives noobcakes, I'm going to radio HQ and tell them you're coming up for evaluation."

"Eh? Evaluation? Does that mean I'm in trouble or something?"

Miki just smirked.

"Nah, you're just gonna go meet the higher-ups, and they'll probably congratulate you on being a crazy Angel-killing machine, then recommend you for a group to join…..probably Kappa, they always get first pick…. Truthfully, it doesn't make much sense for you to be in the EHWD at all, but it let you skip the training at least."

She blanched when she said training. I don't like the sound of this whole training thing. Good thing I got to skip it.

"Alright, here's a map of Guild, you're here, go to the big black square to take the elevator topside. Administration building 4th floor, room 429 is the way in."

She handed me an intricately detailed map with a layout of all four Guild Districts: Warehouse, Crew, Mass Production, and Gateway. Gateway District surrounded Crew and Mass Production, while Warehouse was at the other end of Guild, on its own, kind of.

As I walked through Guild, people gave me grins and high-fives at random. I guess news travels fast when you're dead. Or something. I don't know anymore, okay?

The elevator was absolutely massive. I got on it with like 80 other people, and it slowly made its way up at a 45 degree angle.

I listened in to some girl covered in soot next to me talking to this huge guy who looked like a very mobile boulder.

"…the rumors are true Don! There's some crazy sniper who took down that Angel who was attacking Warehouse earlier today! Single-handedly too!"

I coughed loudly, making her look over to me.

"Unless you count 'an entire floor of a building wailing on her while I got a trio of lucky shots off' to be single-handedly, it wasn't that awesome."

Epic spluttering commence! Ew, it's everywhere.

"What…you….the….they….WHAT."

Well, due to the saliva erupting from her mouth, I can now tell you that she has dark red hair. Thanks, exaggerated bodily functions! You're the best!

"I'm the one who downed that Angel with this rifle, a little present cooked up by Santa's Workshop."

Patting my rifle and hefting the box of ammo I was carrying, I looked at her, who had an utterly dumbfounded face.

"….you look a little short for an Angel killer."

Okay, that was a _low _blow. I'm not that short!

Her big friend waved a hand, before saying in a deep voice, "Leave 'em alone Yumi, not everyone likes getting interrogated on an elevator."

I looked at the big guy.

"Thanks, uh….."

He shook his head.

"Just call me Don; everyone else does…..even though I'm not yakuza…."

He shook his head again.

"Anyways, we're almost to the surface. Where are you headed on this lovely evening…..?

Oh yeah, I never introduced myself.

"My name is Aya, and I'm going to HQ to be 'evaluated' or whatever by the brass."

They looked at each other, than laughed, for some reason. Don's laugh sounds like a bad sound effect from a pirate movie….the one's which I don't love watching…nope, not at all.

"What's so funny about that? Is it punishment? It's punishment, isn't it?"

They stopped laughing, but both still struggled to maintain a straight face. I felt my eyebrow twitch.

"No Aya, it's not punishment _per se_, but it will certainly be a good way to meet the folks up here."

Oh look, we're at the surface, and-HOLY MOTHER OF-.

How did I not notice the full-blown military compound? Seriously, there are people running around everywhere in uniforms, guard towers in the corners, said guard towers illuminating the area with huge spotlights….

Oh, it's in the woods. Never mind. Oh wonderful, I have to walk through the woods in the dead of night.

Walking down the conveniently lit and marked path towards the school, I started to hear gunfire.

Well, that's never a good sign. I started running as fast as I could while bogged down with my equipment, coming out of the woods to see quite the sight:

The building closest to me was absolutely engulfed in shadows, and gunfire and screams came from within.

'_Dammit, I can't ever get a break.'_

Gathering myself, I took a potshot from a standing position, and while I hit a shadow, I also heard with shockingly blaring volume, "FRIENDLY FIRE! WHO THE HELL JUST KILLED TOTO!"

Shit, I think I hit a friendly. Well, time to get closer then.

The entrance to the building was littered in bodies and bite marks, but all of those dead seemed to be self-inflicted. Perfect. I scanned the bodies before finding an assault rifle I recognized and some spare magazines on the guy's belt.

I slung my rifle over my shoulder and picked up the AK-74, and threw the extra mags into my ammo box before heading into the building. I might need to mention that this rifle is REALLY heavy. Not the AK, hell no; my rifle weighs a metric fuckton.

The first floor was silent, but as I neared the stairwell, a body flew by me. At the top of the stairs, a Shadow had its back to me, moving towards an injured girl at the end of the hallway. I put the rifle to my shoulder and lit it up, noting the recoil, and blowing through it and dissipating it into nothingness.

I went over to the girl and helped her up. She had black hair that was in an almost bowl cut style, but she also looked like the type who would beat me up for saying such a thing.

"Where's the rest of your squad?"

She looked around rapidly, but found nothing.

"They were right here with me a second ago….I think they retreated to the upper floors to reinforce the main Pillar base. We need to sweep this floor first though; there were some Shadows in the library when we retreated to this hallway."

She wobbled to a full standing position.

"In any case, I'm grateful for your help. My name is Haruka. What division are you from; I don't recall sniper rifles and sub-machine guns being standard for anyone."

I kinda laughed awkwardly at that, eyeing her jet-black assault rifle hanging by her side via a strap, I really need to get one for my big lump of Shadow love.

"My name is Aya, and I'm technically part of Santa's Workshop, but I was to go to the surface for 'evaluation', and I picked up this rifle off of a guy who didn't need it anymore; I'm going to return it afterwards."

She nodded as we started towards a classroom.

"Adapting to the situation; I like it. You can leave that sniper rifle in here if you want to; no one is going to steal it."

I immediately shrugged off the XM and left it on a lab table in the classroom, taking the AK mags from the ammo box and leaving that there as well.

I was much quicker on my feet now that I didn't have 10 kilos of rifle and 20 kilos of ammo weighing me down.

We entered the adjacent room, catching the tail end of several shadows going to the next room.

I ran across the room, vaulted over the teacher's desk, and slid through into the next room, firing at the Shadows before they realized I was there.

Haruka came through at the other entrance of the room, sighing when she saw the party was over already.

"You're really trigger-happy, aren't you?"

I just shrugged. These Shadow things are gonna kill anyone on my watch! Well, _**ERROR, CANNOT COMPUTE.**_ Think of the implications!

'_Actually, self, don't think of the implications. I might have to kill you. Well, sooner, anyways.'_

That was not creepy in the slightest. Continuing on!

The next room was more fun. A cluster of shadows was hanging around a guy who was dead on the floor. I think they were waiting for him to revive so they could consume him. How dastardly.

I waited until Haruka was sliding open the door to unload, but only heard a clicking sound.

Oops.

I quickly reloaded the gun, throwing the empty mag at a Shadow to get its attention, only to shoot it in its shapeless face.

Haruka's rifle makes a much quieter CRACK then mine does. Oh well. I must be the life of the party then!

I think I was in tunnel vision a minute ago, because I can hear the muffled shouts and spurts of gunfire above us, as well as the occasional sound of metal grinding across metal. We exited into the hallway that led to the stairs to the next floor, only to be halted by a larger shadow that seemed to be guarding it. Upon seeing us, it lunged for Haruka, who ducked back into the room we recently left while I ran to its side to shoot it in the back. It grabbed my leg as I went by, tripping me up and causing me to slide face-first into the wall.

Dizzied and confused, I stumbled to get up and grab my AK, which had been thrown clear of me. I ran and belly-slid on the floor to avoid another hit from the shadow, and maintaining my momentum, rotated onto my back to shoot up into the Shadow.

The bullets ripped through the, some even hitting the lights above us, raining glass onto us. Haruka had recovered by the time the lights fizzed out, and as I sat up from my slide, she finished off the Shadow with a clip from her own gun, which upon examination; I recognized to be an H and K G36. I also realized that the floors here are perfect for sliding; I probably slid 6 meters from the Shadow.

I trotted back up to Haruka as we leaned around the corner to check for more Shadows. We saw none, but the shouts and gunfire had become louder, and the metallic grinding was almost constant now.

We made a run for it down the hall, and in the corner of my eye, I saw a Shadow climbing up the side of the building. I fired twice while I was running, surprising Haruka, but in the act of doing so I hit the Shadow, causing it to be dislodged and fall to the ground a few meters below.

Upon entering the stairwell, we reloaded and checked our ammo reserves. I had 3 full mags left, and she had just the one in her rifle now, which had 24 rounds left, and one spare; after that she would switch to her very pointy machete.

We had to take positions on either side of the doors to the hallway on the 3rd floor, as gunfire was coming down in spurts, and thick black smoke billowed from the hallway, making it nigh impossible to see. Haruka got down on her stomach and proceeded to crawl beneath the smoke on the left side of the hallway, myself following suit on the opposite side.

We could see the feet of several of the larger Shadows attempting to push through a barricade further down the hallway. I was on the right side of the hallway, so I shuffled into the nearest classroom and towards the adjoining one, which was smoke-free.

Upon entering the room, I stood up, noting the lack of desks. Going to the main classroom door, I could see the side of a larger Shadow, so I opened to door a crack and let loose.

The rounds in this magazine weren't standard rounds. As I lit up the Shadow with gunfire, it screamed in pain as it was lit aflame too. I heard a commotion on the other side of the barricade, and after expending my magazine and killing the Shadow, I heard a shout nearby.

"Pillar to incoming forces, do you copy?"

Haruka shouted back, directly next to the door. I opened it farther and she crawled through, coughing and wheezing.

After recovering to some extent, she called back to the barricade.

"Pillar, this is Haruka of Squad Two; I'm sweeping the floors going up to 429, open the door, will ya?"

Heading to the next classroom adjoining to the one we were in, I saw the door she was referring to.

Distinctly out of place for a classroom, it was a heavy steel door that had no door handle, and a sliding peep-hole, which was currently open, though in the darkness I couldn't make out any features.

"Alright, we're opening the door…..who's your friend?"

Haruka looked at me with a smirk, before turning to the door. I noted that the gunfire hadn't actually stopped, and was in fact constant from beyond the room.

"Nobody really, just some newbie from Santa's Workshop. Was sent up here for evaluation by the brass, but got caught up in the festivities. The rifle this little elf had was some serious firepower; consequently, it got left on the 1st floor in the lab."

"An elf? You don't see them topside much. I'm opening the door now, and I'll send a Runner down to grab their stuff; those loonies down there hate to lose their precious boomsticks."

The door swung open, revealing a heavily barricaded section of hallway and a heavily armored person who swung the door shut behind us, locking it with a couple of deadbolts.

The hallways were set up in the shape of a plus, and we were at the center of it. Two of the hallways didn't lead anywhere else, so they were filled with supplies, bodies, and guns.

Wait, bodies?

I did a double take, but upon looking at them, yup, good twenty five or thirty bodies were all stacked up along the hallways. That's some lovely imagery. Of which is going to stay with me until the day I die. Wait. Damnit. All of the good quotes are useless now!

….Well, if they're going to revive anyways…leave him be, I guess.

The barricade that was facing towards the stairwell to the top floor was quite lively. Three guys were all manning large machine guns that were spitting bullets slowly, but you could tell they were big bullets. When they hit a wall, it took a whole chunk out, and the floor down the hall looked like the surface of the Moon.

With every Shadow that went down, more took their place, and they were literally pressing against the chain-link mesh the guns were firing through. These guys were mere _centimeters _from the Shadows, but they hadn't broken through yet, so there was no reason to stop.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, which freaked me out, but it was only a girl in a monochrome nSSS uniform who was struggling under the weight of my rifle and the ammo box. Is it really that heavy?

'_Yes, yes it is.'_

I took both from her, and handed her the AK and the remaining ammo for it. She seemed rather confused by that, down at the submachine gun that was on her hip

"What are these for? I've got my own gun already."

I looked at Haruka, who took them from the Runner.

"Aya took these from Cinder; they were caught by surprise by the Shadows, and he doesn't need the gun while he's dead; I'll give it back to him when he revives and wanders up here….eventually."

The Runner just nodded, before jumping out the window. Leaning over to watch her fall, she grabbed the window sill of the previous floor and swung in the open window. In another second, she had jumped out and swung back in again. Repeating the motion, she was back on the ground in less time than it would take to walk to the stairwell.

I just looked at Haruka, who laughed.

"Yeah, the Runners are pretty crazy, but they're the fastest couriers of the nSSS."

Not even bothering to question the logic behind what I just encountered, I pointed down the hallway that was still an even match of Shadows and bullets.

"What are we going to do about that? I'm not climbing out the window to get to the top floor…."

Haruka just gave me an incredulous look.

"Seriously? You have an anti-materiel rifle loaded with incendiary tracer rounds and you ask me what to do? Ugh, shoot the Shadows until they go poof, or until you run out of ammo! Or both!"

I nodded, but stopped after I realized something.

"How did you know these are incendiary rounds?"

She smacked her head, before pointing at the ammo box.

"I don't know, it says it on the box, maybe?"

I looked at it, realizing that it was indeed written on the box. I sighed, nodding my head.

"Alright, so where do I set up? I'm NOT firing this thing standing up; first time I did it, I almost knocked myself out; second time I did it, I accidentally killed some dude named Toto."

Everyone turned around for a split second and gave me the meanest look I've ever seen.

"YOU KILLED TOTO? YOU BASTARD!"

A short guy with purple hair who was moving bodies into stacks ran at me full force with a look of deadly intent on his face, but I leaned to the side and he went out the open window. The crunch from his landing was quite audible, and made me cringe. No one else seemed affected by it too much.

"Oh, and when I talk about it, people commit suicide."

Haruka started cracking up, and for good reason. That wasn't even planned; unless they keep idiots around here for that exact purpose…..I wouldn't doubt that, actually.

I ignored my misgivings about the quality of soldiers here, and moved an empty table up to the edge of the barricade, next to the guy with the smallest gun. Well, if you could call an M249 little.

I set my rifle down on it, then set my ammo box at the front of it and pushed the barrel through the mesh, the muzzle brake barely fitting through.

With just enough room for me to lie down on the table, I did so, nodding in way of greeting to the guy next to me. He just blinked for a second, before leaning over to the guy next to him and shouting something in his hear. I couldn't hear it over the orchestra of gunfire, but it made him laugh, look at me, and do the same to the guy on the far side. Who in turn also looked at me and laughed. They all gave me a smile before going back to thinning out this absolutely dense mass of Shadows.

I loaded my rifle, as it had been emptied by that last shot in the dark, literally. I just hope no one tells this Toto guy what happened when he wakes up; if they do, I pray no one gives him my name.

As I put each round into the magazine, I watched the Shadows that were trying to make it through the barricade, and in particular, watching where the bullets from the machine guns were going. They seemed to be pooling about 4 meters down the hallway, and from my position on the very edge of the hallway, I could see an enormous Shadow behind all of these smaller ones constantly spitting out a horde of smaller Shadows to absorb the hailstorm of bullets.

The machine guns were firing fast, sure, but they didn't have enough oomph to make it through to that big nastie back there.

I guess that's what I'm here for.

Hoping the table didn't fold, I took aim briefly and shot, the rifle producing little recoil thanks to the bipod wedged firmly in a sandbag. I hadn't realized it during the Warehouse battle, but these rounds actually lit Shadows on fire, and this gun packs a punch. Or like a thousand punches. Is there a good metaphor for big guns? I can't remember.

'_Be quiet and do your work, knave.'_

'Okay, self, shut up, you're getting a little too mean for my tastes. I'll let your sarcastic comments slide, but don't offend me, me!_'_

'_As you wish.'_

A whole line of flaming Shadows dissolved into nothingness, leaving a visible distance between the barricade and the next oncoming wave of garbage-I mean Shadows.

I fired again, taking down the entire wave this time, as they hadn't had a chance to fan out, and were lined up like pigs for a slaughter.

The machine guns started to hit the enormous Shadow at the end of the hallway, but as soon as they did, the eponymous clicking of a lack of ammo was heard from the big gun, which I had again subconsciously noted to be an M2B.

The lack of the deep puhpuhpuh allowed me to hear the request "I need more ammo!" and the reply "Just hang on a goddamn second!" from my table-top position.

I had to stop assaulting the Shadow to reload as well, but thankfully I had my ammo on hand. Pulling the slide to chamber the first round, I just unload the whole magazine into the Shadow all at once.

See, my rifle is semi-automatic, but due to the extreme size of the round being fired out of it, and the recoil from firing it, it's usually never fired with any amount of regularity.

I threw caution to the wind and fired all five rounds in two seconds, the recoil pounding against my shoulder painfully, despite the bipod and the relatively fixed position in the pile of sand-bags.

The effect was quite spectacular however, slaughtering the Shadow that had been producing Shadows like it was its livelihood….which it had been, but we enjoy loving….despite being dead.

Damnit, it's better off dead, okay?

All of us stopped firing after the hallway cleared of smoke. Oh, I didn't mention, my rounds make some nice smoke when they hit something. That explains earlier, I guess.

My ears were ringing profusely from the gunfire, and the guy who was loading the M2B just looked at the gunner and said "Well, never mind then."

The gunner then smacked him and yelled "Finish it anyways, you nimwit!"

Which, to his credit, he had actually been done, so he just stood up and walked back over to a game of human solitaire he had been having. The four suites being tall male, short male, tall female, short female. The numbers were number of bullet wounds they had.

It was a bit scary to realize he actually finished his game. With bodies.

Ignoring that whole section of hallway, I got off the table, feeling the aches from laying on it, and especially the pain from offloading a lot of recoil into my shoulder.

All the gunfire had stopped, but the grinding noise was still present.

Abandoning all pretenses, I climbed over the barrier after grabbing my rifle and ammo and started down the hall into the surface of the Moon, and onto the stairwell to the top floor.

Haruka yelled out to me as I opened the door to the stairwell.

"Wait!"

I turned back to look at her run up to me before I made it onto the stairs.

"You forgot this."

She handed me a pistol that had a magazine sticking out far beyond the grip.

"This is a gift from Pillar. The guys who were manning the guns had been betting on you; if Yu won, Kintoki had to give you his gun, and vice versa. Yu bet that you'd clear out the Shadows, Kintoki had bet that you wouldn't, and you'd get yourself killed too: So here's Kintoki's gun: a modified Colt .45 with a 24-round magazine."

I looked at her, and she winked at me, before turning to go up the stairs, Haruka following me.

"Did they really bet on me?"

Looking back, she nodded as we got to the top of the stairwell. The doors here were odd: they lacked windows.

"Yeah, we get pretty bored in Pillar; our only job is to defend the Administration building, and this is the first time Shadows have attacked it in months, so we screw around a lot. It probably doesn't help that the EHWD is known to be full of raving lunatics….though the best heavy weapons and gear come out of there, most geniuses are just one step away from being insane. Not that it matters too much; we're all mad here."

She gave me a weird smile to accompany the last line, but I ignored it. Partially.

'_See? It's perfectly fine to talk to yourself'_

'I didn't need you to tell me that, but thanks self, you're a great help._'_

She got in front of me, opening the door quickly with a hand on the trigger of her rifle.

She closed it just as quickly. The door rattled and clawing sounds could be heard.

"Holy shit. There's a swarm out there. It didn't look like they've breached 429 yet, but that's still a LOT of Shadows."

Well, that was blunt. Wait.

"429?"

"Yeah, the nSSS's main headquarters are set up in room 429. They knocked down the wall between 429 and 431, and sealed the entrance to 431, so they could have a safe location for operation planning."

Ahh, which makes….absolutely no sense. Well, not any more than anything else in this world, at least. That's a comforting thought…..maybe we all are just mad hatters in a world without a tea party.

Without asking for a go-ahead, I dropped to the floor, flung out my bipod, and shot through the door.

"What the hell Aya?...That's genius!"

'_There's a Shadow behind you, coming up the stairs.'_

'Stop messing with me self, no there's not. We cleared out the hallway right before coming up here._'_

I could see through the half-inch hole I had made, and while there were a lot of shadows, a lot of them were in various states of being on fire too.

I took another shot, making another hole in the not-so-sturdy metal door, sparking up another legion of inky black blobs. Haruka made a choking sound next to me, which made me turn.

Only to see her backing towards me, a Shadow right next to us.

'_Told you.'_

'You know what, me, I hate it when you're right. So what do I do now?_'_

I scrambled to my feet, abandoning my rifle on the floor, grabbing Haruka and pulling the both of us back towards the wall.

'_You don't look to be able to kill the Shadows here, so kill yourself to ensure your survival. Kill the girl too. Her knife will do the trick.'_

Looking over the banister, more were coming up the stairs, and the first Shadow had stepped between my gun and us.

I pulled the both of us down to the floor, grabbed Haruka's machete out of her holster, and did something I really didn't want to.

I slit Haruka's throat while she was focused on the Shadow, then pushed her body in between the bars of the stairway, causing her to fall to the level below, the snap of a neck plainly obvious.

I grabbed her rifle from the corner and jammed it to my chin.

'_Goodnight, my precious.'_

'Yeah, whatever. You're an asshole, you know that?_'_

'_So I've been told.'_

Looking square in the face of the Shadow, I pulled the trigger.

The last things I heard and felt was the rumble of the gun rapidly expelling bullets into my fragile skull, and the last thing I felt was the sharp pain of a couple bullets in the brain.

* * *

**A/N: Well hello there! I finally updated this, and I realized how fun it is to write this again. (Aya talking to Aya and Other Aya talking to Aya talking to Aya is a plot point, just putting that out there.) I was going to have the sweep and clear end successfully, but this chapter was really getting up there in length, by far the longest chapter I've written for anything so far. (The actual chapter part is 6,844 words!) **

**So Aya and company take a dreadful fall and a couple bullets and stabby stabbies. If you want, leave a review and tell me what you think! I'm trying to improve my writing as I go, and constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated! Though, any review is appreciated too! :D**


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